Ch. 3:

Recently, a student overreacted in a quite surprising and violent manner to a situation with a fellow classmate—they were teasing each other about progress on ST Math; the student took his Ipad and slammed it repeatedly to the floor.  I was very shocked and taken aback by his behavior and hauled him out to hall.  He was screaming and crying, “I don't care, give me a Fix It Plan”.  My initial reaction was to take him to the office (or at least see if the Social Worker was available).  But, after the initial outburst, he calmed down a bit and I could quickly assess that it had little (if any) to do with the altercation.  Rather, it was a spillover from this student’s previous night and morning.  He has a tumultuous home life and is constantly being pulled between two angry parents (who aren’t together and never have been) and a caring grandmother stuck in the middle.  He is dealing with worrying about his mom verbally and emotionally abusing him and wanting to stay more with his dad, who hasn’t always been in his life.  I believe this child is dealing with a combination of unmet needs.

I think I got lost in the behavior vs. the need, but was able to salvage the situation by helping him to meet his unmet needs, specifically his emotional need.  If I can remember this more during “the heat of the moment”, a lot of time, energy and stress can be minimized.   And most importantly, I will be able to help the student when they need it most.